With the arrest of four engineering students with fire arms in their possession, engineering colleges in Odisha, already neck deep in crisis, are in for another shocker. Police is in a tizzy. The higher education department is grappling with ideas to rein in the erring students. But all these initiatives are simply knee jerk reactions and will do precious little to address the rot that is responsible for this system.

Uncontrolled privatization of education, lack of
quality education and near absence of a credible monitoring system
are the underlying causes and engineering students venturing out into
the crime world is simply the symptom. This is not only true for
Odisha only, it equally applies to other states in the country.

Some of the engineering college students indulging
in different crimes is nothing new for Bhubaneswar and some other
parts of the state. But the city police either had not taken them
seriously or simply looked the other way. But this time the
engineering students have been nabbed with fire arms and they are
suspected to be involved in fire arms smuggling.

In
Focus

The police can no longer afford to ignore this and
has to come out with systematic interventions to arrest this. Even
the Department of Higher Education also has jumped in to action
(albeit too late) and that has been the cause of worry for the
engineering college operators.

On 5th June, Rs. 11 lakh was looted at a
city hospital by the armed criminals and the police was on a manhunt.
During this operation the Special Squad, Quick Action Team and
Tomando police intercepted five youths on two motor cycles. Three
fire arms along with live ammunitions were recovered from them. Out
of the five nabbed youths, four belonged to different engineering
colleges in Bhubaneswar and the fifth one to a private college in
final year B. Com.

During last three months the police has seized more
than 50 fire arms and more than a hundred ammunitions. Police has
been able to arrest the members of more than 15 gangs involved with
arms smuggling. The Police Commissioner has said that in each of
these gangs there are two/three engineering students. The engineering
students get involved with the arms smuggling for the lure of money.

With the mushrooming of the engineering colleges,
students from neighboring states of Bihar and Jharkhand join these
colleges. Some of them get the revolvers dirt cheap from Munger and
Jharkhand for a paltry amount of Rs 2000 to Rs 3000. And this sells
for somewhere between Rs. 35-40, 000 in Bhubaneswar. So it is good
money for the students who want to have a luxurious life.

Some for the students have made it a regular
business while a few others possess guns just to show off or commit
petty crimes. While the police are well aware of the modus operandi
and the implications of smuggling of arms while the crime graph is
shooting up, it is doing next to nothing to control it. In recent
past more than 20 students have been nabbed with the charges of arms
smuggling, that should be enough to get the alarm bell ringing. But
next to nothing has been done on this front.

First of all these engineering students do not live
within the campus as many of the colleges do not have hostels as per
the AICTE norms. The students of these colleges barring a few
colleges having hostel facilities are scattered all across the
residential areas of the capital city, making it really difficult for
the police to mount any kind of vigil. Even the concerned colleges
also fail to have an eye on the students who could be involved with
crime.

With a shortage of students to fill the seats in the
engineering colleges in Odisha, the college authorities see a lot of
advantages in turning a blind eye to the straying students. An
insider, who has been involved with the operations of several
engineering and management colleges in Bhubaneswar confides with the
condition of anonymity, “With the shortage of students for the
colleges, one has to do a lot of dirty jobs to keep the colleges
going. First of all you collect the students, and assure their
parents who no doubt invest a hefty amount for the engineering
education of their ward that their ward will become an engineer per
excellence. While parting with the money, the parents want an
assurance from the college operators that their ward will get a
placement. What all things the college authorities have to ensure the
placement of the students who are hardly employable is a different
story. But the crux of the matter is that these students acquired the
hard way are a pampered lot. Very often they get involved with
accidents, fight with other groups, being caught in inebriated
conditions and even crimes like chain snatching etc. It is the pious
duty of the college authorities to bail them out from such
situations. Colleges even have specific persons to do this beat and
in some cases have to keep the police on payroll. One can say that in
a way the engineering college operators in these engineering colleges
provide hand holding support to such way ward students to graduate
into higher levels of crime.”

But, he was quick to add that this
malady was not specific to Odisha only, in other states too this is
true to lesser or larger extent.